Sunday, May 1, 2016

Journeys / Being of use

Journeys bring power and love
back into you. If you
can't go somewhere,
move in the passageways of the self.
They are like shafts of light,
always changing, and you change
when you explore them.

(Djalal Ad-Din Rumi)

Last Sunday, I drove nearly the entire length of the state of Washington to meet with a friend from childhood and her husband of at least 40 years (whom I had not met before) and their shy sweet Bernese Mountain Dog. In order to adopt a puppy, they had driven up from their home in a small community which is located high in the mountains of southeastern California. We met in Carson, Washington, a tiny town located on the Columbia River gorge.

My old friend and I met when we were 12 or 13 years old. We used to walk to junior high school together. In high school, we took long walks from our homes in suburban Redwood City, California, into the beautiful grassy hills to the east of Redwood City. We walked there in the days before Highway 280 cut through those rolling hills, before the hills were filled to the brim with houses, while the Vietnam War was still raging. We were not part of the "in crowd." We were both odd and eccentric and enjoyed each other's company. My family went to church. Her family didn't. I remember the time she brought me to a Buddhist festival in Palo Alto. We belonged to a small loosely connected group of young women who lived within walking distance of each other and went to the same high school. Below is a photo of three of us. If my memory serves me well, the photo was probably taken at the 16th birthday gathering for my old friend. That would have been in 1965. We are all wearing "Beatle" hats. Her father was a psychiatrist. Their home was filled with books.

Here are the senior yearbook photos of my friend and me. Neither of us enjoy being in front of a camera:

My parents chose that photo of me because they paid for the photos. I'd love to see the rest of photos and see what was not chosen by them.

After we graduated from high school in 1967, one of the things my friend did was become a surfer, and she spent weekends surfing in Santa Cruz. Another thing she did was go to Stanford University, following the tradition of both of her parents. After graduating from Stanford with a degree in English Literature, she went to law school and had a long career as a lawyer. Her husband was a conscientious objector and, as a result of his alternative service in a library which had early computers, he had a long career in the field of computers.

In 1967, I left Redwood City to attend the University of California at Irvine, studying Art and English Literature. My friend and I kept in touch. She visited Irvine. I visited her at Stanford. It was the time of protests against the Vietnam War. The man she loved achieved conscientious objector status. The man I loved was drafted in April of 1969. He was a high school dropout and a surfer. We considered going to Canada. He met with draft counselors in Oakland on the day before he went to Vietnam but felt sure that he would not be granted conscientious objector status. He did not want to go to prison (although he ended up in prison years later for drug and alcohol-related offenses). He did not want to go to Canada. He made the fateful decision to go to Vietnam, serving as a helicopter mechanic, returning as a drug-addicted war-haunted man in December of 1970. We lived together for nearly 5 months. We separated in the first weeks of May 1971 after a terrifying episode where the violence of the war that haunted him was directed at me.

In 1973, in an attempt to go on with my life, I left California. My friend and I gradually lost touch with each other, although I did visit her at her law office in the early 1980s, and she contacted me
in the early 1990s.

A year ago, during the December holidays, she wrote a note letting me know that she and her husband had moved from the San Francisco Peninsula to a remote place in the Sierras.

That note led to our respective journeys to Carson, WA.

What got me started on this post was reading this article about Daniel Berrigan who died yesterday at age 94.

You have to struggle to stay alive and be of use as long as you can. (Daniel Berrigan)I've also been listening to George Harrison's final album and wanted to share these thoughts fromGeorge Harrison:

Lyrics from "Brainwashed":

The soul does not love. It is love itself.
It does not exist. It is existence itself.
It does not know. It is knowledge itself.How to Know God, page 130

And then I've also been meaning to share Joni Mitchell singing "God Must Be A Boogie Man."

8 comments:

Oh these heart-tugging journeys, I am so struck by the paths we have taken in life up the coastlines in the west. I love that you met up with such a wonderful old friend. Your photos stir so many memories of that time in the late 60s and early 70s.

This was a lovely read. I have two female friends who have been with me for ages, one since we were ten and one since university. Some years we only write birthday cards, other times, a frenzy of mails and letters and visits. And then there is a male friend, a strange person and we don't have much in common but he and I met when we were 4 yrs old and were play mates, school mates and neighbours in and out of each others homes until we left the city for university. We argue when we meet but we both know that we are the longest human contact apart from family to each other, our parents were friends of sorts, and I think our bond is almost like siblings but without the burden of shared parents.

The internet has made renewing friendships so much more common. I am in touch with one or two people from my distant past with whom I had not had contact for many years. I'm very pleased that we are in contact now. People move about more than they perhaps used to... People are busy... People acquire (and unacquire) partners, have children... etc... In my case, certainly, it's been good to take up what we'd left off.

A beautiful and poignant post. I have a friend too, who has suffered physically and emotionally from the effects of the Vietnam war. But so good to meet up again with someone from your past. The photos of you 3 are great!Love the Rumi lines too.Morelle

Oboe in late April 2018

How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be? -- Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

Welcome to "TALKING 37TH DREAM (RUMORS OF PEACE)".

The photograph currently at the top of my blog was taken on May 8, 2016, at West Beach in Deception Pass State Park in Island County of Washington State. For years after leaving Northern California in 1973, I had a recurring dream that there was an ocean beach not too far south of Bellingham. My joy at discovering that beach in my dreams was offset by my grief that no such beach existed when I woke up. On May 8, 2016, I visited West Beach for the first time with a friend who also grew up in Northern California. West Beach is the beach I dreamed about for so many years. May 8, 2016, was the 29th anniversary of the beginning of my healing in connection with bulimia, anorexia, alcoholism, and the beginning of actively using the creative gifts I had been born with. On May 8, 1987, I spent the entire day driving south on Highway 1, frequently gazing at the Pacific Ocean from Mendocino County to Santa Cruz County when the ocean was visible from the road.

"OLD GIRL OF THE NORTH COUNTRY" (the earliest name for my blog) came to life in early December of 2006 so that I could post a 42-year retrospective of my paintings and drawings and through that action, create a new relationship with the day the man I loved returned from Vietnam in December 1970. For a while (sometime after spring of 2008, which is when he died) my blog was "TALKING 37TH DREAM WITH RAINBOW (RUMORS OF PEACE)". For a number of years, it's been "TALKING 37TH DREAM (RUMORS OF PEACE)." As of April 12, 2017 my blog is now titled "37TH DREAM / TALKING 37TH DREAM (RUMORS OF PEACE/LOOKING UP)".

To begin viewing the retrospective with narrative, scroll down to December 8, 2006, on this page:

How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be? -- Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. -- Martin Buber (1878-1965)

It is only a little planet, but how beautiful it is.

-- Robinson Jeffers

The true end of a war is the rebirth of life;the right to die peacefully in your own bed.The true end of war is the end of fear;the true end of war is the return of laughter.

-- Alfred Molano

Enjoy every sandwich -- Warren Zevon (1947-2003)

Not in God's wilds will you ever hear the sad moan, "All is vanity." No, we are paid a thousand times for all our toil, and after a single day spent outdoors in their atmosphere of strength and beauty, one could still say, should death come — even without any hope of another life — "Thank you for this most glorious gift!" and pass on.

-- John Muir (1838-1914)

Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do? Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well. Hugh Fennyman: How? Philip Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.